Tag Archives: House Rules

One of the things I loved about later editions of the game is the ideas of templates. It allowed you to come up with all sorts of strange and interesting ways to alter a monster without needing to create something from whole cloth. I’ve mulled the idea over and come up with a quick way to modify existing monsters to make them a bit more special and potentially dangerous without having to create new ones each time.

I wrote these spells and the accompanying spells and items as a extrapolation from Ogre’s Strength. Their effects, if built into other spells via the spell builder would cost the same as ‘The Strength of an Ogre’ as their base.

I thought the idea had merit. The more I rolled it around in my head, the more I liked it. Even if you left Clerics in, the spell creation and class creation rules in ACKS gave a perfect opportunity to build a ‘better elf’… or at least a different one.

I thought the idea had merit. The more I rolled it around in my head, the more I liked it. Even if you left Clerics in, the spell creation and class creation rules in ACKS gave a perfect opportunity to build a ‘better elf’… or at least a different one.

In this post I’m going to rebuild the Elven Courtier class as a divine noble. Their spell list focuses on control and spells that would help political types.

Elven Courtier

Divine by birth, noble by upbringing.

Prime Requisite: WIS and CHA

Requirements: WIS 9

Hit Dice: 1d6

Maximum Level: 13

Among the elves of Northern Argollë, there yet remain some noble families that can trace their lineage to the Imperial era. These highborn elves spend their days at the courts of Aodhan, engaging in intricate duels of etiquette, swordplay and magic against rival families. Few care to look beyond their borders, likening man’s dominance over the Ammas Aurë region to the darkening sunset at the end of a glorious day.

From time to time, one of these elven courtiers is possessed with more than the usual allocation of ambition and vigor, and sets out from sylvan Aodhan to seek glory and gold in the world of men. Few return to their woodland demesne, yet enough succeed to fill the history books with new annals of elven glory. The elven courtier class represents one of these bold scions.

Though not specialized in fighting, elven courtiers are comfortable with weapons. At first level, elven courtiers hit an unarmored foe (AC 0) with an attack throw of 10+. Elven courtiers thereafter advance in attack throws and saving throws by two points every fourlevels of experience (i.e. as thieves). Elven courtiers are trained to fight with swords, shortswords, daggers, composite bows, spears, and lances, and to wear chain mail or lighter armor. They may wield a weapon and shield or a weapon in each hand, but may not wield a weapon two-handed. All courtiers receive classical weapons training giving them a bonus of +1 to attack throws with their choice of melee or missile attacks. The courtier must choose which type of attack will receive the bonus at 1st level, and may not change the choice as he advances.

As patricians of their race, elven courtiers are of course taught the dive arts, but it is not their focus. Elven courtiers cast divine spells as cleris of one-half their level, use the same rules for learning and casting spells. They can use any magical items available to clerics. In addition, they can turn undead as a cleric of half their level.

Elven Courtier Level Progression

Eleven Courtier Spell Progression

Experience

Title

Level

Hit Dice

1

2

3

4

5

0

Attendant

1

1d6

–

–

–

–

–

1600

Courtier

2

2d6

–

–

–

–

–

3200

Aristocrat

3

3d6

1

–

–

–

–

6400

Noble

4

4d6

1

–

–

–

–

12800

Exemplar

5

5d6

2

–

–

–

–

25600

Patrician

6

6d6

2

–

–

–

–

50000

Dignitary

7

7d6

2

1

–

–

–

100000

Consul

8

8d6

2

1

–

–

–

240000

Lord

9

9d6

2

2

–

–

–

380000

Lord, 10th level

10

9d6+1*

2

2

–

–

520000

Lord, 11th level

11

9d6+2*

2

2

1

1

–

660000

Lord, 12th level

12

9d6+3*

2

2

1

1

–

800000

Lord, 13th level

13

9d6+4*

2

2

2

1

1

*Hit point modifiers from constitution are ignored

As befits their noble upbringing, elven courtiers are well-schooled in diplomacy and protocol. They receive a +2 bonus on all reaction rolls when they attempt to parley with intelligent creatures (as per the Diplomacy proficiency). This same upbringing gives them the leadership skills and self-confidence to inspire courage in their allies, in the same manner as bards. Inspiring courage requires a few moments of oration before a battle (one round), and grants the courtier’s allies within a 50′ radius a +1 bonus to attack throws, damage rolls, morale rolls (for monsters or NPCs allied with the caster), and saving throws against magical fear. The bonus lasts for 10 minutes (1 turn). A courtier can inspire courage in any given character once per day per class level. (Even the most inspiring epic gets old if you hear it twice in the same day.) A courtier cannot inspire courage on characters who are already engaged in combat.

From childhood, courtiers are taught to either sing, recite poetry, or play a group of instruments in a skilled manner. The courtier chooses the type of performance that his character knows. He may take the Perform proficiency to learn other types of performances.

Such training lays the ground work for courtiers to work magic with their song and poetry. At will, the character can conduct a performance that can serenade creatures with a potential prurient interest (as a charm person spell) or quiet savage beasts (as a sleep spell, but it only functions on ordinary and giant animals of 4 HD or less). These abilities require one minute (6 rounds) of performance and may not be used if combat has already begun.

Like other elves, courtiers gain a +1 bonus to surprise rolls when in the wilderness due to their attunement to nature. Elves have keen eyes that allow them to detect hidden and secret doors with a proficiency throw of 8+ on 1d20 when actively searching, or 14+ on casual inspection. Because of their connection to nature, elves are completely unaffected by the paralysis ghouls can inflict, and the target values for all their saving throws versus Petrification/Paralysis and Spells are reduced by 1. Elves can speak the Common, Elven, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, and Orc languages.

When an elven courtier reaches 9th level (Lord), he is expected to establish a fastness in a natural setting, such as a forest or glen, to further his family’s lineage. A total of 3d6x10 1st level elven NPCs will move in to help with it and defend the fastness at no cost to the character. A courtier’s elven fastness follows all the rules for elven fastnesses detailed in the Elven Fastnesses section of Chapter 7 of ACKS.

When an elven courtier reaches 10th level, he may begin to research spells, scribe magical scrolls, and brew potions.

In my ever present drive to Kill the Thief class, I was looking at Spears of the Dawn. In that take on B/X, they got rid of the thief class entirely and folded it into the fighter. So you basically have spell caster classes, and the bad ass. So, with that in mind, I present the following. This class is ‘not balanced’ with the existing classes, and takes several liberties with the design system, but instead tries to make the ‘fighter’ more comparable to the mage. It was also an attempt to harken back to OD&D when there were only three classes and ‘fighting men’ covered all the concepts that weren’t magic users.

This class also (unintentionally) gets rid of a lot of need for subclasses. Obviously, they can still exist (big benefit being cheaper xp progression).

After some consideration, I’ve decided to modify my Soul Knight Class. Rather than manifest a (very) damaging spell, I think I’d rather take a page from later editions and let them create a weapon that steadily get’s stronger as they level up. I don’t think it will break anything (not when compared to multiple attacks from Claws and Bite), so I’m ok with it.

The following is a class built around…well, I’m sure you can figure that out. Arguably, this class is unnecessary and the normal mage can fill the role, but I was flush with my earlier success so decided to play with something that had things like Elementalism and spell-like abilities ‘baked-in’.